Learning the limits of IT strategy

In his new book, The Limits of Strategy: Lessons in Leadership from the Computer Industry, author Ernie von Simson aims to educate readers on what common ingredients often make up corporate recipes for failure and illustrate how businesses can avoid making these mistakes.

Von Simson’s work experience in IT spans back 30 years ago when he co-founded and served as a senior partner of the Research Board, an IT-focused private sector think tank that investigated the sources and uses of technology. Fast forward to the present day, and von Simson is now a senior partner at Ostriker von Simson, a New York-based consultancy that helps enterprises select and deploy technologies. In addition, he serves as the co-director of CIO Strategy Exchange and sits on the Board of Directors for several IT companies.

Von Simson said after he left the Research Board, his intentions were to write a book with the research reports from his company. The book took almost two years to write and included information from around 100 research reports. The intent of The Limits of Strategy is to teach and caution readers of common business mistakes that have been made in the past and how to avoid them.

As an overview of his book, von Simson said he looks at four major computer companies that were dominant suppliers of mini computers in the early 1990s: Digital Equipment, Hewlett-Packard, Wang Laboratories and IBM. Von Simson said eventually, the CEOs of Digital Equipment and HP were pushed into retirement, Wang Laboratories declared bankruptcy and IBM forced its CEO to retire.

“How did this happen?,” von Simson asked? “All four CEOs were clever and experienced. Two were founders of their companies; the others highly successful career executives. All four were simply overwhelmed, and while there was no single explanation for what happened, there were definite common themes.”

CDN Now had the opportunity to interview von Simson about his new book and some of the key points he writes about.

CDN Now: What inspired you to write this book?

Ernest von Simson: Thirty years ago I co-founded a firm that later became the Research Board. Every year we’d do a scan of the major companies serving this particular set of CIOs. We’d interview all the top executives such as the vice-president of marketing, R&D, CFO and CEO and from there, we’d write up reports on a segment of the industry. I later sold that company and, as part of my contract, I have the rights to all of those years of reports. I spent about two years putting those reports together into a book. As I was writing it, I suddenly saw a lot of longitudinal trends about companies that were highly successful in one area and era that failed and became unsuccessful later on. The book helps readers gain an understanding of the history of the computer and IT industry. In some ways, the book is a combination of case studies and it serves as a sort of memoir too.

CDN Now: What are the key themes and takeaways from your book?

E.V.S.: If you look at the earliest PC companies, most failed not because they didn’t use microprocessors, but because they didn’t understand what the business should be and how they’d do things like support and training. Today, these things seem obvious but back then, these companies tried to mimic what worked in the past. They didn’t realize that new technologies brought with them new demands too. Some of the common themes in the book include knowing your competition, understanding the marketplace, realizing that in periods of significant change, the sales force which is the crown jewel of many organizations in the enterprise market can often be the biggest obstacle for change, for example resisting new markets and products, and also recognizing that the CEO is the steadfast leader who chooses company direction after careful consultation with customers and key employees. They take their direction and ignore the naysayers. A good example of this is (Apple CEO) Steve Jobs, who marches to his own drum.

CDN Now: Who are the target readers for your book?

E.V.S.: The target readers are people who work in the industry, the general business audience and students. The book addresses what worked and what didn’t work for businesses and can also be used as a teaching tool. The book includes lots of real world examples and histories of what went right and what didn’t over the years.

Follow Maxine Cheung on Twitter: @MaxineCheungCDN.

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Jim Love, Chief Content Officer, IT World Canada

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Maxine Cheung
Maxine Cheung
Staff Writer, Computer Dealer News

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